Alex Smith Shades Tom Brady Over Criticism of Today’s NFL With All-Time Slight

The former quarterback came out swinging.

Tom Brady recently belted out some scorching comments on today’s NFL when he said there was a lot of “mediocrity” in the league compared to when he first started playing and, naturally, his criticism has gotten a lot of pushback. The latest response to Brady came from Alex Smith, a former NFL quarterback who played his fair share of games against Brady. 

The ESPN analyst threw some haymakers in his comments on Sunday and his own coworkers caught some strays. Smith tore Brady’s comments apart and based his argument off the fact that the AFC East, the division he played the majority of his career in with the Patriots, was horrifically mediocre while he was there. 

Alex Smith just made excellent points about Tom Brady’s “the NFL is worse” take while side-swiping two former Patriots and accidentally obliterating a former head coach of the Jets AND Bills. Immaculate television. pic.twitter.com/WsCBx9Y58b

— Joshua Brisco (@jbbrisco) November 26, 2023

“My biggest complaint with this, and no offense to you guys — well all three of you guys,” Smith said on Sunday NFL Countdown. “He played in the most uncompetitive division, I think, in NFL history.”

Sitting to Smith’s right was former Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss and former Jets and Bills coach Rex Ryan. On his left was former New England linebacker Tedy Bruschi. Both Moss and Bruschi were teammates with Brady and enjoyed consistently dominating the AFC East, while Ryan had plenty of experience going against them. Unfortunately for Ryan, he doesn’t have many fond memories of those matchups. 

Ryan can be seen as a good sport about catching the stray, but it’s clear Smith strongly disagrees with Brady on this one and thinks he’s being a bit hypocritical.